Revamped!

[This is one of the chapters in this whole story that makes me sad as hell].


Chapter 109: Fate Be Answered

Manhattan, New York - Time Frozen

Sigyn's mouth barely opens as she watches her cousin's axe fly towards her. She stands hypnotized by the sharp object spinning as it comes closer and closer to her. This could end it. This is exactly what she wants while she could still have it. Her plan is working the way she naturally intended it to. So, why is she holding up a handful of magic to defend herself although that won't work?

"Apollo!" Someone she can't distinguish yells. "Stop this! That's Britney!"

Hearing that name sets loose a monster inside of Apollo as he charges towards her. That snaps Sigyn back into reality and she shoots a portal right in front of her for the axe to fly through. Once the weapon disappears with the portal, she prepares herself to fight against Apollo's defences and notices that everyone else is doing the same for her.

Angela and Xavier are firing icers at him, some shots hitting his armour or the substance meant to knock him out doesn't even faze him. The anger in his blood boils it away. Emily and James are blasting at him and Iqadi is creating a windstorm to send him back towards them and not her. Sigyn raises an arm to block the wind, and even with all that force against him, he's still so much more powerful than that.

Apollo raises a hand in the air and his axe suddenly comes flying back as if it never left. The moment it lands in his palm, lightning takes over the skies, knocking everyone to the ground except for him. Sigyn gasps for air as she feels her entire body glowing with magic to fight back. She makes a ball of it and shoots it at him. As Apollo staggers back, the lightning storm continues as Sigyn stands back up and makes a run for it.

"You already woke up the monster inside of you…" Daniel told her earlier and the more she runs, the more likely she is to be hunted by the only force that can kill her.

Sigyn looks in front of her and sees Apollo land from the sky just a few feet from her. She stops running and tears streak down her face as she looks at her cousin, someone who barely recognizes her because of her actions. Sigyn opens her mouth to say something but it cut off by Apollo's axe slashing her. She flies back, hitting the ground and the axe clanks beside her with a fresh hint of red on it. Sigyn winces in pain, seeing nothing but her blood all over her and on the ground around her. She stays on the ground and whimpers as she attempts to pull herself back up. She knows she deserved that.

When Apollo sees blood, he turns towards her and starts to run to finish off what he started. He could see Sigyn through her swirling magic. She's on her knees, bent forwards, cradling her hands. The right side of her chest is soaked in blood.

His breath hitches as if he wants to laugh.

Sigyn hasn't moved. Her back is to him but she falls onto her hip. She looks back and sees him. Pain is drawn into her features but her eyes widen in fear when she sees him. Fear, panic, regret, and desperation. Apollo looks at her dress that's drenched in her blood; staining her skin and the ground around her.

"You didn't even fight back!" Apollo yells at her. "Where is the fun in that?!"

Apollo smiles at her as she tries to cough up blood. It looks as if he was enjoying this as if he was waiting so long for this and it was finally here. Sigyn knows she's responsible for all this. Besides, she turned him into this and if there was one thing that never left him, it was always wanting to fight.

"I have something you don't: backup," Sigyn replies.

Apollo shakes his head as she lifts his hand to call his axe back to finish her off. Sigyn's eyes have an accepting regret in them as she closes them. Apollo stares at her, his axe wiggling as it's even unsure whether or not to return to its wielder. Then, Apollo sees Xavier crouched over Sigyn like a protectorate, getting her blood on him.

"What are you doing?" Apollo asks him.

"Apollo, stop," Xavier begs with a shaky voice. His face is pale and terrified as if Sigyn's feelings transferred to him. "The prophecy doesn't define who you are."

Apollo shakes his head, not wanting his friend to get in his head and mess with him like this. He trusts them but he doesn't understand why they're so sensitive and ready when it comes to defending Sigyn. Although he doesn't remember what happened in the past seven years, they don't know what she did to him. He thinks that like what Sigyn did to him, she's playing with their minds - hell, they were the ones who got him when he first showed up and, apparently, under her order as well.

At this point, who knows what else's she's done or worse, what she will do?

"You won't understand," Apollo tells them. "This is for the better."

Apollo urges his axe to come faster but stops again when Daniel steps right in front of his open hand. He tries not to look frightened but can't help himself.

"Sigyn said that what she was doing was for the better," Daniel tells him. "You need to stand down and reason with her or else she will bleed to death."

Apollo looks at him hesitantly. His eyes look at Sigyn who has her head turned away, hiding behind Xavier's body as opposed to his shield. Her chest is still moving up and down with weak breaths. He looks at his other friends who have all surrendered their weapons to stand in front of her. That gets Apollo thinking that Sigyn, despite his current beliefs, means something to them if they're willing to sacrifice their lives at his hand if that means Sigyn gets even just a few more minutes to breathe. Apollo's heart feels heavy as he respects their ballsy move.

After she's fought against them, they're still willing to protect her. He has to find out what that means.

"Alright," Apollo whispers, lowering his hand. His axe stops moving. "Let me talk with her."

Everyone else looks at each other with doubt. Apollo takes his axe and throws it off into the distance, an action signifying that he gives them his word that he won't do anything. Everyone else backs up, leaving Apollo with Sigyn but remaining close enough in case he abandons his promise. He sees her continue to bleed out as he approaches her, stepping into her blood. She slowly turns to face him. To his surprise, she's smiling and it angers him.

"I don't know what you're up to, traitor," Apollo snarls at her. "Look at how powerful you are and yet so weak. Even with all your power and my axe at a disadvantage, I could still kill you now."

"Then, do it," Sigyn replies tauntingly. "My days are numbered as are yours. Go on now, kill me."

"I won't stop until you feel the same pain I do."

"I carry enough burden for the both of us. You don't even remember the last seven years." She cranes her head up a little, still keeping that bloody smirk on her face.

Apollo pauses. That's her only advantage against him. She knows everything that happened on Asgard for the past seven years and he doesn't. Apollo takes another step closer to her and as his shadow covers her body, her smiling façade vanishes.

"I don't remember anything because of you," Apollo tells her.

Sigyn folds her fingers together. "Please, at least remember who I am."

"You're the one destined to be killed by me."

Sigyn tenses a little as she nods. "Try to think back to what happened before you showed up on Midgard. Why you were brought here."

"It was because of you!" Apollo yells at her. "Everything was because of you!"

With his free hand, Apollo calls his axe. The others get ready to fight back but Sigyn pushes out her own bloodied hand, stopping them.

"You're scared, Apollo…" Sigyn whispers to him. "You could kill me but you won't. Your axe isn't even in your hand because it's all a bluff and a courageous mask. You didn't even strike me when I showed up with the Serpent Crown and let our friends handle me. You froze when I was down and vulnerable. You may not remember everything but you remember and know enough."

Apollo's shaking. His strong composure is shattering at his feet, but he keeps his eyes on Sigyn.

"Lies!" He yells at her with his voice cracking from a sob. "All you have been doing is lying!"

"I know," Sigyn confesses. "You're so scared of what's coming so I made the choice to block those memories from your mind. I tampered with you purposely. Think harder, Apollo, there was nothing we could've done."

Sigyn closes her eyes, ready and accepting of her fate ending in one swoop. But nothing happens. Sigyn opens her eyes and tears fall out as she sees Apollo standing in front of her, saddened with red-rimmed eyes.

"I've always wanted to come back here to Midgard and see them," Sigyn tells him as her eyes look towards their friends, "even under these circumstances. But at least I'm now fulfilled. Do what has to be done…"

She waits for Apollo to call his axe again and she hears it flying in, perfectly landing in his hand. His eyes are fixated on her blood that stains his armour and weapon, making him stammer and queasy. When he looks at her again, suddenly, she feels more scared than when he was charging at her with a full force of lighting. Her bones rattle at the thought that what's coming in the next few seconds is worse than death.

"Give me memories back," Apollo demands.

Sigyn shakes her head. She has to get out of here and bleed to death while she still can. She'll do anything to keep them to herself. Her hands start swirling with magic that disappears the moment Apollo grabs her wrists.

"Don't disappear," he orders sternly.

Sigyn barely nods. She dares to remain silent. At the demand of reversing what she's done, a surge of feelings that had engulfed Apollo to the point beyond anger into an extremity of bewilderment and disgust started to choke her. His breathing is irregular and heavy, he clenches and unclenches the axe in his hand. And still, he stares into her with a rigidity of savagery in his face. His eyes are bright and the muscles in his throat tense. He's fighting an emotion that he didn't want to expose. She knows enough to recognize that absent memories were crowding in and nothing was driving this turmoil except his desire for them. He takes a step forwards and she shrinks back, the sharp edges of his axe glistening in the sunlight.

"Look at me," he tells her. "Look at me now."

She looks up at him and tears of pain and fright run down from her deep-set eyes, and blood dribbles down from a cut lip.

"Give me my memories back," Apollo demands again.

"I was doing you a favour," Sigyn argues softly.

"A favour is only a favour if it's asked for!" Apollo yells. "I wanted none of this!"

Sigyn starts trembling as she begins to cry. "There's so much you will remember and it will bring you nothing but eternal pain."

"Do it, please."

She knows she has no choice at this point. "I'm so sorry, my cousin."

Sigyn lights up both her hands and her arms burn regretfully as she holds them up around Apollo's head. She's a warrior without a physical weapon because she uses her magic to conquer whatever attempts to break them. Not now, however. Her entire body is shaking as she expels her magic back towards him, returning what he craved. She said she was sorry like everyone would, but she didn't sound like she was sorry. She sounded defeated.

Just as her magic starts melding into his brain, missing pieces rise and expand like something breaking the surface of reality and rippling into his conscious mind. For Apollo, it feels like everything just stops.

His body begins to slow down. His lungs contract, expelling his last breath. He stumbles, trying to grab her for support but she backs up so he falls over. He blinks at Sigyn but his vision blurs. Apollo can't move. His breaths wheeze as he slumps forwards. His eyelids are so heavy. His brain clouds over with … with his lost memories. He feels like his limbs are made of sand like his skull is thickening up to unwillingly accept the flood of memories coming towards him.

When his memories were first taken, he believed that he'd lost everything. But once his mind was refilled, he saw that so much of the past seven years was lost in a haze of pain, loss, manic, anger, betrayal, and a pang of sadness so raw that there were days where he couldn't summon the energy to eat or even scream. Entire nights in which shadows terrorized him, becoming nightmares of monsters. He wanted to accuse Sigyn of giving him false one to save herself and her lies again, but no, he knows that these are too gruesome and horrible for them to be false. There was no way she could have conjured these out of thin magic.

"No … no, take these back!" Apollo yells at her. "Get these away from me!"

Sigyn tries to straighten herself. "You're okay, Apollo. You just - you have to take it all."

This wasn't a time to tell him that she "told him so." He didn't need that now or at all.

"No," Apollo spits, but then his expression turns from brutal and violent to being terrified, and he starts to cry. Apollo gasps a breath, pressing his palms over his ears to block out something that's already there in his mind. "Not again. Make it stop."

Apollo reaches out for Sigyn and she steps back, wrapping her arms around herself.

"It's all right…" She whispers, knowing it wasn't true.

"It's not!"

Apollo swallows. Though his breaths are uneventful, he stops shaking. He pulls his hands from his ears, still looking bewildered.

His heart drops to the depths of the Earth once he learns about what happened on Asgard, what he did. The mere thought of everything makes him dizzy and he knows that he will be awake all night. He thinks that he's weak for not being able to cope with these truths and he knows that he's right.

The biggest fights happen when people care about each other and she censored those memories to protect him. He understands that she's crazy and crazy doesn't usually have an explanation, but there must be a reason. And now, he knows that these secrets were so big and she couldn't share them with anyone, not her friends, people closest to her, the one she's in love with. So she took them the easy way and used her magic to run. The more he wanted to forget, the harder it became not to remember. Fear could be forgotten, but never for long.

Apollo screams to himself, gripping his body and hair tightly, up to the point where he knocks himself out and slumps on the ground.

Sigyn finally exhales the long-deserved breath. She wipes at her face with her sleeves, unknowingly making streaky marks of blood on her face. She looks at her cousin and kneels beside him, patting his arm and face until she hears footsteps. Sigyn turns around and rises at the appearance of everyone else whom she forgot was here while fighting Apollo. They look scared and skeptical and, frankly, so did she.

"Get him out of here," Sigyn orders as she brushes past them.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going now?!" Emily yells at her.

Sigyn shrugs. "To Hel to bleed to death."

"No, you're not," Angela says.

Sigyn scoffs. "Try and stop me."

At the snap of her fingers, she vanishes and time starts ticking again. Everyone else scrambles to get Apollo into their arms so they could get out of there as soon as possible.


[And now, Apollo finally has those memories back!]